Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1011650
| SUNDAY • 5 AUGUST 2018 maltatoday 18 ACROSS the globe, dull career bureaucrats have been pushed aside in favour of a new guard of young, fresh-faced politi- cians. While many expected the Continent's economic cri- sis to upend the political or- der, the backlash took longer to build, and unfurled itself at the ballot box rather than the street, starting with the elec- tion of then 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras in Greece in 2015. In the last year, France, Ire- land, Estonia, Spain and Aus- tria have elected leaders under the age of 40. Malta, Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg have in the last four years elected heads under the age of 45. When Muscat's Labour Party's won a landslide electoral vic- tory in 2013, Joseph Muscat at 39 became Malta's second youngest ever Prime Minister, and the youngest since Dom Mintoff was first elected in 1955. It seems that growing un- happiness with establishment politicians is driving the wave of youthful energy across the continent. There's a feeling that this is a time when a new response is needed to today's problems. There is less empha- sis being put on age and expe- rience because there's a feeling that there's something wrong, something rotten, in Europe. More than youth alone, these leaders offer their countries a renewed sense of vitality and excitement on a continent facing its share of challenges from increased immigration from Africa and the Middle East, to unemployment. Austria's Sebastian Kurz is the world's youngest leader. From the outside, the millen- nial politician born in 1986 is a breath of fresh air. In one of Europe's most conservative countries, he re-energised his party's staid image by chang- ing its colour from black to turquoise, frequently goes without a tie and, like many millennials, reportedly works from a standing desk. But while a crop of new and exclu- sively male faces now populate the top of European official- dom, the institutions many of them lead are the same as ever. Kurz, for example, leads one of Austria's oldest parties and ran on a platform featur- ing right-leaning policies. It's precisely this mix of youth and tradition that may make these new leaders pal- atable to the electorate, ana- lysts say. The leaders elected this year are far from inexpe- rienced and were well known by the electorate before their campaigns. Kurz in 2013 be- came Austria's youngest-ever foreign minister and hosted negotiations on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who is currently Europe's young- est leader, as well as Emanuel Macron, France's youngest- ever President elected in June at the age of 39, also held high ministerial positions before leading their political parties. In a sign of the changing times, Ireland's Prime Min- ister Leo Varadkar marked several significant firsts for the predominantly Roman Catho- lic country, he's the country's first openly gay prime min- ister, the youngest to hold the office, and the first Irish leader of Indian descent. Fur- ther afield, Jacinda Ardern was officially sworn in as the Prime Minister of New Zea- land in 2017. At 37, Ardern is the youngest New Zealand PM in 150 years, and the coun- try's third woman leader. She also happens to be one of the few politicians globally to talk openly about mental health, and her personal struggle with anxiety, and is a strong sup- porter of women's rights and LGBTQ issues. Of course the rise of social media has changed the dy- namics of politics, politics has become much faster and much less predictable. Young peo- ple are better at dealing with this new dynamic than old established politicians. Defy- ing the trend for young lead- ers On this matrix, the EU's warhorses are Germany and the UK, where recent elections kept the old guard in power. There are, however, questions on how long that will last. De- spite what seems to be a grow- ing trend for younger leaders, older politicians are still very much involved in governing and setting the agenda. One doesn't need to be young of course to disrupt tra- ditional political oligarchies. The election of Donald Trump at 70 was evidence of that. But, unlike in the US, where the president wields more power as an individual than as head of a party, European politics are, for the most part, parlia- mentary. The voter sentiment that's lifting the new generation of European politicians to the top is often agnostic of ideo- logical divisions and focused on expectations of change, ex- periments and different ways of government. It may be in- terpreted as a rejection of wis- dom, professionalism and ex- pertise, but it can also be seen as a protest against business as usual, which in many Europe- an countries means cronyism, corruption and an indiffer- ence to voters' core interests. So unusual programs win and unusual policies are tried. FEATURE New power generation: The global leaders of tomorrow Just returned from an EU summit in Luxembourg, Patrick J O Brien believes that the emergence of youthful figures in positions of power gives hope to young Europeans who may have seen politics as a 'no-go zone' The prime ministers of Ireland – from left Leo Varadkar, Luxembourg – Xavier Bettel, Spain – Pedro Sánchez and Austria – Sebastian Kurz